Prayer group ends 'illegal sit-in' at Franciscan-owned Tipperary church, court told

High Court reporters

A prayer group has ended its "illegal sit-in" at a Franciscan-owned Tipperary church due to be closed, resulting in a High Court action being struck out.

Last month, the group’s representative promised the High Court that it would end its sit-in, which was on Thursday confirmed to have finished.

Mr Justice Brian Cregan had sought the undertaking from Patrick O’Gorman, chairman of the Abbey House Prayer Group, which had been occupying the Friary Church in Clonmel since New Year's Eve in protest over the Franciscan Order’s decision to close the building.

The prayer group took over the church after what was supposed to be the final mass on December 31 before they returned the keys to the Franciscans. The members had been allowed to use the building on a temporary basis under a May 2023 agreement.

The SF Trust decided to close the 13th Century church due to their diminishing numbers, the age of its members, and the “unrealistic” cost of ongoing opening and maintenance of the building.

At the High Court on Thursday, Matthew Jolley BL, for the SF Trust CLG, which owns the property on behalf of the Franciscans, said the matter could be struck out without any order and that the group had vacated the church.

Mr Justice Cregan had been asked by the trust to grant an injunction forcing the prayer group to vacate the building.

Last month, Mr O'Gorman told the court that the group would leave by midnight of January 23rd.

Mr O’Gorman told the judge the group had accepted they had been conducting an “illegal sit-in” as a protest to the Franciscans’ decision to close the venue.

He said the occupants were “not religious zealots” but mostly “retired, elderly people who have been coming to the church for generations”.

Mr O'Gorman said the people of Clonmel were “very upset” at the closure and said the members began their around-the-clock protest as a “last resort” but wanted to be "reasonable".

After accepting an undertaking from Mr O’Gorman that the occupants would leave, the judge said he understood the church's imminent closure was a “devastating loss” to the prayer group.

In an affidavit, Fr Aidan McGrath, minister provincial of the Franciscan Province of Ireland and a director of the SF Trust, said the cost of maintaining the physical fabric of the historic property which had rendered the ongoing opening and maintenance of the building was "simply unrealistic".

Fr McGrath said the planned closure was widely communicated in January 2023 and that since then some €160,000 has been spent on the church's upkeep.

Last October, following a review, the order decided it could not sustain keeping the church open without significant maintenance into the future, including the fixing of leaks, roof tiles, windows and the repair of the entire roof in the friary area.

Fr McGrath said the group had also posted a sign at the church saying the Province was "seeking to bully the people to accept the decision as fait accompli, which they will not accept".

At the High Court on Thursday, Mr Justice Cregan struck out the matter and made no further orders.